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Wisdom from a MacArthur Genius: Psychologist Angela Duckworth on Why Grit, Not IQ, Predicts Success. By Maria Popova “Character is at least as important as intellect.”

Creative history brims with embodied examples of why the secret of genius is doggedness rather than “god”-given talent, from the case of young Mozart’s upbringing to E. B. White’s wisdom on writing to Chuck Close’s assertion about art to Tchaikovsky’s conviction about composition to Neil Gaiman’s advice to aspiring writers. But it takes a brilliant scholar of the psychology of achievement to empirically prove these creative intuitions: Math-teacher-turned-psychologist Angela Duckworth, who began her graduate studies under positive psychology godfather Martin Seligman at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, has done more than anyone for advancing our understanding of how self-control and grit — the relentless work ethic of sustaining your commitments toward a long-term goal — impact success.

“It’s insulting to imply that only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent human being,” Isaac Asimov told Bill Moyers in their magnificent 1988 conversation on science and religion. And yet ours is a culture that frequently turns to rigid external rules — be they of religion or of legislature or of social conduct — as a substitute for the inner moral compass that a truly “decent human being” uses to steer behavior. So what can we do, as a society and as individual humans aspiring to be good, to cultivate that deeper sense of right and wrong, with all its contextual fuzziness and situational fluidity?

Schwartz and Sharpe write: External rules, while helpful in other regards, can’t instill in us true telos. People who are practically wise understand the telos of being a friend or a parent or a doctor and are motivated to pursue this aim. The world is gray.
Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Crucial Difference Between Success and Mastery. By Maria Popova The lost art of learning to stand “where we would rather not and expand in ways we never knew we could.”

“You gotta be willing to fail… if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far,” Steve Jobs cautioned. “There is no such thing as failure — failure is just life trying to move us in another direction,” Oprah counseled new Harvard graduates.
Enlightenment’s Evil Twin. Exploring the Shadow Side of Meditation In 1974 Hans Burgschmidt was sixteen years old, living in the Canadian Prairies, working in a photography studio darkroom, elbow-deep in chemicals all day long.

Heroic Imagination Project. Mouth Trumpet - Tutorial. Procrastination: Ten Things To Know. There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination .

Procrastinators sabotage themselves. They put obstacles in their own path. They actually choose paths that hurt their performance. Why would people do that? I talked to two of the world's leading experts on procrastination: Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators.

Beginning to see. By sujata pen-art by julio lynch this book is dedicated to the 9 to 5ers and everybody else.

Until recently, even the possibility of any such information existing was, for essentially political reasons and funding reasons, denied by most of our institutions, together with most of our educators and psychologists, so that such findings as were made in various contexts and circumstances never got discussed across a broader context. Now that it is evident that the brain, and one's intelligence, are highly changeable and that a wide variety of conditions, arrangements and techniques may be employed to improve both brain functioning and intelligence to even a profound degree, we need to make a start on getting a lot of this key information organized to where you and other inquirers can more readily get at it, understand it, and use it.

Menu of Methods Quick Interjection. Dr Richard Milne - Critical Thinking on Climate Change: separating skepticism from denial. Free online speed reading software. Correcting Creativity: The Struggle for Eminence. By the time he put the finishing touches on the Rite of Spring in November of 1912 in the Châtelard Hotel in Clarens, Switzerland, Stravinsky had spent three years studying Russian pagan rituals, Lithuanian folk songs and crafting the dissonant sacre chord, in which an F-flat major combines with an E-flat major with added minor seventh.

The rehearsal process wasn’t easy either. Stravinsky fired the German pianist and the orchestra and performers only had a few opportunities to practice at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, where the Rite debuted in May 1913. But the Russian born composer pulled it off, and his composition now stands as a 20th century masterpiece. Stravinsky is one of seven eminent creators of the 20st century profiled by Harvard professor Howard Gardner in his 1993 book Creating Minds.

The others are Pablo Picasso, Sigmund Freud, T.S.
30 Challenges for 30 Days. Did you know that it takes 30 days to form a new habit?

The first few days are similar as to how you would imagine the birth of a new river. Full of enthusiasm it gushes forth, only to be met by strong obstacles. The path is not clear yet, and your surroundings don’t agree. Old habits urge you to stay the same.
Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills.

The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new.
Deskercise! 33 Ways to Exercise at Work. Remember the days when “work” meant manual labor with a side of blood, sweat, and tears? Neither do we. These days it seems we’re more likely to log hour after idle hour with our bums glued to our seats. And while you may be an Excel champ by day and gym rat by night, recent research suggests that the recommended 30 minutes of cardio five times per week may not undo the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle .

So what’s a worker chained to his or her desk to do? Luckily short bouts of aerobics, strength exercises, and stretching in between conference calls and Gchats can help improve fitness levels and heart health . Cardio. Debate-flow-chart.jpg (JPEG Image, 630 × 902 pixels) - Scaled (98%)
Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do. Exercises for Better Focus and Concentration. The recipe for success: get happy and you will get ahead in life. Happiness, rather than working hard, is the key to success, according to research published today. Cheerful people are more likely to try new things and challenge themselves, which reinforces positive emotion and leads to success in work, good relationships and strong health, say psychologists. The findings suggest that happiness is not a "feelgood" luxury, but is essential to people's wellbeing.

Boost Your Brain’s Power With a 9-Volt Battery and Some Wet Sponges. It seems, with the help of a 9-volt battery, wire, crocodile clips, and wet sponges, you can increase your brain’s performance and, more importantly, return your brain to its younger, more malleable and learning-receptive state. The technique, which is lumbered with the fantastic and slightly terrifying name of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), is similar to deep brain stimulation (DBS), but it doesn’t involve complex neurosurgery. TCDS runs a very small current — just 2 milliamps — into brain tissue just beneath your scalp; it’s non-invasive, and seemingly quite safe. By pumping electrons into the brain, neurons move a few millivolts towards ‘depolarization’, which makes them more sensitive, and thus reducing the time it takes signals to travel across your nervous system.

More importantly, though, this technique increases the plasticity of brain tissue, leaving it in a kind of ‘wet clay’ state after the electrical current has been removed.
GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit. Creative Thinking Is a Specific Process That Can Be Replicated. Ever seen a real kung fu workout routine? [VIDEO]
Is it possible to use more of our brain?
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